Tumor, particularly in the malignant form, commonly known as cancer, is one of the leading causes of death and accounts for about 13% of all deaths worldwide. In general, tumor cells are defined as highly proliferative as they continue to divide and grow evading normal inhibitory controls, such as programmed cell death and cell cycle arrest. According to the report of cancer incidence in 2015 by the United States National Cancer Institute, breast, lung, prostate and colorectal carcinomas as well as melanoma are diagnosed with the greatest frequency. As stated in the American Community Survey 2015, lung and colorectal carcinomas led to the highest death rates amongst the common cancers. Most of the current mainstay antitumor agents are used to induce cell death and/or cell cycle arrest in the incipient tumor cells, so that tumor development or progression is expected to be halted. Despite numerous chemotherapeutic agents are available on the market today, many of them either possess narrow therapeutic indices or exert undesirable side-effects. Fluorouracil (5-FU), an antimetabolite, is one of the most commonly used drugs in cancer treatment as it improves the survival of patients with various cancers whereas it imposes the largest impact in colorectal cancer. However, this antimetabolite causes diarrhea, nausea, mouth scores, etc. in patients and thus leads to their loss of body weight and/or poor appetite. On the other hand, malignant tumor cells often develop resistance in response to the use of single cytotoxic agents or a group of similar agents; therefore, the effectiveness and efficacy of many chemotherapeutic treatments become very limited. Till now, chemotherapy resistance is a major concern in the medical management of patients suffered from tumorous pathologies. Taken together, discovery and development of new and potent antitumor remedies are urgently needed. Over the past decades, a number of pharmacological studies have been focused on the use of drug-like small molecules as chemotherapeutic agents derived from herbal constituents, particularly polyphenolic stilbenoids. In fact, stilbenoids are a category of compounds composed of a general C6-C2-C6 structure, and they are often isolated as monomers and oligomers for their applications as botanical supplements or active constituents in medicinal preparations. As suggested by a growing body of evidence that stilbenoids are potent antioxidants as most of them are produced as phytoalexins against abiotic and biotic stress factors. In addition, some of the stilbenoids have been reported with anti-inflammatory activity and anti-diabetic potential.
It is an objective of the present invention to provide a method of using dihydro-resveratrol as an anti-tumor agent in a subject.
Citation or identification of any reference in this section or any other section of this application shall not be construed as an admission that such reference is available as prior art for the present application.